Ramsey does its best to shed light on abuse, addiction, and how it affects people while also giving viewers a murder mystery. It definitely gets its point across but also loses itself in the process. What starts as a whodunit becomes a little bit of a mess, even though it all ties together in the end.
An Unpredictable Mystery
This movie starts with a bang – quite literally – when a police officer is murdered. She used to be an actress, and her sister, who was also an actress, suspects foul play. She hires a private investigator named Ramsey to look into it. Ramsey goes through the list of many suspects, crossing them off one by one. Viewers will be just as lost on who the culprit is.Â
We don’t use the word lost badly either because this is the best part of the movie. The audience will feel the same way that Ramsey does. We maneuver through the mystery with Ramsey and figure out who is guilty. It seems that every good suspect has an alibi or, eventually, a reason why they would not have killed her.Â
All too often, thrillers like this are predictable. From the start, it is clear who the killer likely is, and then you have to sit through the movie for confirmation. Not with Ramsey. This movie does a great job of keeping the audience guessing. Viewers are often on their toes as they try to take clues from every scene and put them together to solve the mystery.
Ramsey Has Too Much Going On
As with most Indie movies, there are some problems thanks to what can be accomplished with a lower budget. Ramsey has quite a few sound inconsistencies. There are some scenes where the voices are much lower than others. This causes viewers to lean towards the speakers or even turn the volume up to hear everything fully. With a murder mystery of a movie, it is important to listen to every detail so that you can rule out the suspects.
The biggest issue with Ramsey is that what starts as an intriguing murder mystery becomes what feels like a campaign to shine a light on sex addiction. It does weave into the story eventually, as it is highly likely the woman who was murdered also had the same addiction. Still, it feels like a weird choice to have Ramsey be a slave to the same addiction.Â
To remain spoiler free, we won’t go into more detail on how this ties into the mystery. I can’t help but feel that it just felt too forced to have multiple people in the story be sex addicts. The ending would have worked much better if this had not been shoved into several different parts of the story.
A Dedicated Team
Even with a script that tries to do too much, it is clear there is a dedicated team behind this film. From the costuming, set design, and stunts, it is apparent that those who worked on Ramsey believed in it and put their all into it.Â
The actors, in particular, did what they could with this movie and its characters. Every one of them is believable and plays their roles perfectly.Â
Ramsey Features A Great Message About Addiction
Ramsey has a great message about coming to terms with addiction and the problems it can cause for everyone in your life – not just you. However, it is too long, clocking in at just under two hours. The pacing is off as it starts interesting and then gets slow as more plot points are packed into it.Â
If thirty minutes or so were cut, and the sex addict storyline was pushed to the back burner, it probably would have come together much better. Still, the reveal of who killed the police officer is a good one, as it is quite shocking. At the same time, it almost feels like it comes out of left field.
Ramsey will keep viewers guessing who the murderer is almost the whole way through.
Rating
4/10
